Beyond NAFTA: Protecting Legitimate Trade & Travel

Saturday, Oct. 22, 12:15-1:30 p.m.

International trade has become a global reality that affects every American business, from small and medium enterprises to large corporations. The smooth flow of legitimate trade and travel across borders is instrumental in creating and maintaining jobs and strengthening the supply chain between states and nations. The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, is the largest of its kind and represented $918 billion in total goods trade for the U.S. in 2010. In this session, senior officials from the NAFTA countries will discuss the agreement, the challenges and opportunities it represents, and the future of trade in North America.

Moderator Bio

Jeffrey Rageth

Jeffrey Rageth joined 3M Company in 1997 and is currently the vice president of public affairs. This position combines U.S. Federal and State Business Affairs, International Public Affairs and Global Issues Management.

Mr. Rageth’s prior 3M assignment included director, business affairs. In this position, he was responsible for managing 3M’s state and local government affairs and community public relations activities across the U.S.

Prior to joining 3M, Mr. Rageth held various executive management positions. The most recent position was deputy commissioner, Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development. Preceding that public service assignment, he served as executive director, Metro East Development Partnership, andcCommissioner, Economic Development Authority, Cottage Grove, Minn.

He is on the Board of Directors of United States Council for International Business and Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Rageth also serves as a member of the German-American Business Council, Business Council for International Understanding, United States India Business Council, Washington International Business Council, Emergency Committee for American Trade, Potomac Exchange, American Council for Young Political Leaders, Minnesota Business Partnership, California Chamber of Commerce and California Manufacturers and Technology Association.

Mr. Rageth holds a BS degree in Communications and Psychology from the Ambassador University in Pasadena, Calif.

Panelists Bios

Dr. Brian Lee Crowley

Brian Lee Crowley has headed up the
Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) in Ottawa since its inception in March 2010,
but he has a long and distinguished record in the think tank world. He was the
founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) in Halifax, one of
the country’s leading regional think tanks. He is a former Salvatori Fellow at
the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. and is a senior fellow at the Galen
Institute in Washington. In addition, he advises several think tanks in Canada,
France and Nigeria.

Crowley has published numerous books, including
two bestsellers: Fearful Symmetry: the fall and rise of Canada’s founding
values (2009) and MLI’s first book, The Canadian Century; Moving Out of
America’s Shadow, which he co-authored with Jason Clemens and Niels
Veldhuis.

Crowley has twice won the Sir Antony Fisher
Award for excellence in think tank publications for his heath care work and in
2011 accepted the award for a third time for MLI’s book, The Canadian
Century.

From 2006-08 Crowley was the Clifford Clark
Visiting Economist with the federal Department of Finance. He has also headed
the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), taught politics, economics and
philosophy at various universities in Canada and Europe.

Crowley is a frequent commentator on political
and economic issues across all media. He holds degrees from McGill and the
London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the
latter.

Erik Lee

Erik Lee serves as associate director at the North American Center for
Transborder Studies (NACTS) at Arizona State University. He has extensive
knowledge of the United States and Mexico government agencies’ crossborder
policy work in the areas of education, competitiveness, sustainability and
security. As associate director, he is responsible for a variety of areas,
including legislative research, policy advising and coordination with numerous
partners in the United States, Mexico and Canada on various collaborative
initiatives related to trade, security and sustainability. He is currently
overseeing a project that looks at various aspects of U.S.-Mexico trade. He is
also leading an initiative that looks at human trafficking legislation and
collaboration in the U.S. and Mexico for stakeholders such as the Border
Legislative Conference, the Border Governors Conference and the Conference of
Western Attorneys General.

From 2006-2007, Mr. Lee was program officer for the Merage Foundation for the
American Dream, a foundation based in Newport Beach, California. He was
assistant director at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of
California, San Diego from 2002-2006. Before that, Lee served as assistant
managing director at the Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and
Policy at San Diego State University. He has consulted for philanthropic and
educational organizations and has also served as a resource for a large number
of local, national and international media outlets.

Before completing his master's degree in Latin American Studies at UCSD in
2000, Mr. Lee worked as a university administrator and instructor in Hermosillo,
Sonora for two and a half years. He received his bachelor's degree in English
literature from the University of Arizona.

Dr. Paul Storer

Paul Storer is professor and chair of the Economics Department at Western Washington in Bellingham, Wash. He is a member of the board of directors of the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference (PNREC) and serves on the Executive Council of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. From 2001 through 2005 he served as editor of the Northwest Journal of Business and Economics. Storer's research focuses on Canada-US business and economic relations and the effect of border security on trade.

Among Storer's recent publications (both joint with Steven Globerman) are: The Impacts of 9/11 on Canada-U.S. Trade (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and "Canada-U.S. Integration Following NAFTA" (in North American Economic and Financial Integration, Elsevier, 2004). He has previously published in such journals as the Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Public Policy, the American Review of Canadian Studies, and Contemporary Economic Policy. Storer has served as a consultant to the Government of Canada and to the Brookings Institution. He is also a coauthor on the 13th U.S. edition of the introductory Economics textbook by Lipsey, Ragan, and Storer.

Storer has a PhD in economics from the University of Western Ontario and BA and MA degrees in economics from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining Western Washington University, Storer was employed as an economist at the Bank of Canada and served on the faculty of the economics department of the Université du Québec à Montréal.